Poink! Tuesday Open Thread

I killed a man today.

I didn’t mean to.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. I meant to do him grievous bodily harm; to paraphrase blues legend R.L. Burnside, him dying was between him and the Lord.*

But I sure wasn’t too broken up about his mortal coil choosing to shuffle off a bit earlier than scheduled.

You see, he stopped to watch the fender bender.

I’ve said this before, but in Mayhem’s America there will be fewer crimes. Not “less crime”- although that will be the eventual inevitable result. No, I propose to simplify the criminal code when I am named Grand Supremo, eliminating some crimes, combining others and generally harmonizing the edifice of criminal justice into a relatively simple and easily understood set of precepts.

Not only will this simplify the populace’s understanding of Allowed and Disallowed, but it will also make law enforcement and the criminal justice system simpler, faster and less susceptible to the disparate impacts we currently see in different communities and different parts of the population. There is copious psychological and sociological research that when a crime is more certain to be punished, that has a bigger deterrent effect than raising the severity of potential punishment with a lower likelihood of being caught.

But for some things, justice must be swift, certain and severe. Strict measures must be taken so that the offending individual is not simply punished, but removed from Society permanently so that their rot will not spread.

I speak, of course, of the gaper.

This foul creature goes by many names; you may know them as “rubbernecker” or “lookie lou.” Perhaps you don’t even have a word for drivers who slow down to look at the scene of an accident. Sweet summer child…

Regardless of the label, the diseases they spread are the same: delay, chaos and carnage. How many times have you been caught in a massive traffic delay only to reach the chokepoint and find…nothing. Maybe two random folks who had a minor accident. Maybe a guy with a flat trying to change his tire. Maybe literally nothing at all. Think of all the wasted time, the wasted fuel, the mental aggravation caused by assholes who slow down to look FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN OBSCENE MORBID CURIOSITY.

By indulging their sick fetish for the suffering of roadside strangers, these highway hellions are causing spiritual damage to you, me, and everyone we interact with down the line- a wave of dark energy sweeping over America. And it’s time for that to stop.

I have always made it a campaign plank that, under my benevolent administration, individuals found to have caused “gaper’s delays” would be subject to immediate public roadside execution. Yes, this may in turn prolong delays as others slow to watch Instant Justice being meted out; but only temporarily. By the end of the first month, our statisticians guarantee me that anyone with the slightest inclination toward Illegal Spectatorism will have been weeded out. We will then be free to live our lives without this psychic stain on our national consciousness.

But of course, this is just a dream. A dream of what might be, if the people of America had the courage and fortitude to hand me absolute control of their lives and property.

But today…today, I took the first small step toward making the dream a reality. Toward making sure that our children, and our children’s children, never have to live in fear of The Rubberneck Delay. With God by my side and a tire-iron in my hand, I showed the world what could be…

Now, can someone lend me some bail money?

*Original quote: “I didn’t mean to kill nobody … I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord.”

NFL NEWS:

Nothing. Jack shit.

-Literally the biggest news is that Jimmy Garoppolo had to massively rework his contract with the Raiders because his foot was so borked that he couldn’t pass the physical without a waiver.  “Man Who Gets Severely Injured Regularly Is Injured” isn’t exactly front-page news, NFL.com…

-Le’Veon Bell “revealed” that he would smoke up before games, and that Adam Gase was a complete fucking muppet as a head coach. Truly revelatory shit…

WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:

Also nothing. Denver is trying to ward off boredom as Miami scrapes the residue of the Celtics’ entrails off their sneakers. The Las Vegas Golden Knights have until the weekend to prepare for something called the “Florida Panthers.” TBS is interrupting its block scheduling of Friends and Young Sheldon for Phillies vs. Mets, and its a measure of my utter disdain that I wish they hadn’t.

ESPN 2 is showing the “New York Liberty” versus the Seattle Storm at 8 pm Central.  The Liberty are in quotation marks because they are really the Brooklyn Net-ettes and are trying to Super Team the league- how did that work for the normal Nets?  The Storm…well, they’re owned by actual fans of the franchise who bought it in 2008 to keep it from moving or folding. So I guess Go Fish-Tossers?

QUIZ TIME:

Would you rather fight 20 mouse-sized horses, or 1 guy wearing a bowtie “ironically”?